NWA 6/10/16

A Northwoods Almanac for 6/10 – 23, 2016  

Barred Owl Chick Climbing a Tree

Todd and Chris Williams in Minocqua sent me a series of photographs of a young barred owl that they observed on the ground outside their front door.  It likely had either fallen out of its nest or had experienced an aborted first flight experience. Todd noted in his email that “as I was taking these pictures, mama (or papa) was giving me the evil eye and telling me in no uncertain terms to leave its baby alone. I was even dive bombed a couple times. Once the baby walked, climbed and flapped its way up the tree, we watched it all day outside our second floor bathroom window. The next morning it was gone and we've not seen it since.”

I was unaware that a barred owl chick could climb a tree, but Todd’s pictures clearly show it hitching its way up a tree. Further research revealed that the young climb trees by grasping the bark by their beak, then walking up the trunk while flapping their wings.

photos by Todd Williams

The flightless chicks leave the nest at at four to five weeks of age, dropping to the ground and climbing a nearby tree to perch, whereupon the parents continue to feed them until they are four to five months old. The young begin to molt into their adult plumage at around six weeks of age and begin attempting short flights around 10 weeks of age. They actually won’t attain their full adult plumage until they are five to six months old.

It’s Snowing Cotton-grass

            On a recent drive through Powell Marsh on Hwy. 47, the marsh appeared to be covered in snow. Instead, the snow effect was the results of thousands of cotton-grasses (Eriophorum) all in flower. Seven species of cotton-grass appear in Wisconsin. All are found in bogs, and all produce cottony flower heads.

Sightings: Chickadee Nest, Crane Display, Whimbrel    

Sarah Krembs sent me a fine photo of a pair of chickadees in Minocqua that were feeding caterpillars to their chicks in their cavity nest. She went back a few days later to see the chickadees, and the parents were again bringing caterpillars, but “then all of a sudden they were both up in the trees doing their warning ‘chick a dee dee dee dee’; very agitated. Then, I saw the hawk the chickadees had obviously spotted way before I did sitting on a dead log not very far away. The chickadees communicated something to each other and they both vanished but NOT into the hole for the nest. I imagine they didn't want to draw attention to the nest with a predator there. I yelled at the hawk and it sort of lazily flew off. I waited for the parents to return, and eventually they did. Birds are so smart and master multi-taskers, don't you think?”

photo by Sarah Krembs

Callie and I witnessed a distraction display put on by a sandhill crane on Powell Marsh, a behavior we’d never seen before from a crane. We were walking one of the dikes when we noticed a crane walking parallel to us in the tall marsh grasses. It was just a bit ahead of us, perhaps 100 feet to our side, and walking rapidly. It seemed to us to be trying to draw our attention, which it surely succeeded in doing! A little later when we returned the same way, it flew from the marsh and landed in front of us, again walking rapidly and flapping its wings. While it didn’t feign a broken wing like a killdeer might, or like numerous species of ducks do, it was obviously trying to lead us away from where we presume her chicks were hiding.

Tom Folsom gave me a call on 6/6, saying there was large bird with a long decurved bill wandering about on one of his cranberry marsh dikes in Manitowish Waters. Mary and I quickly took a drive out there, and soon found a whimbrel, a curlew species that nests in the Arctic tundra. Whimbrels are occasionally seen in Wisconsin during their migration, but are a rare treat in our area.

whimbrel photo by Mary Burns

Shrubs in Flower

Shrubs currently in flower include nannyberry, highbush cranberry, blueberry, and various dogwoods. Nannyberries (Vibernum lentago) get overlooked in our area, but provide an excellent crop of berries for many mammals and birds including ruffed grouse, cedar waxwings, brown thrashers, red fox, and white-tailed deer. Nannyberries also serve as the larval host for the spring azure butterfly. For those who like to forage, I’ve read that the berries are edible and can be used to make jams and jellies, but I’ve never tried them.

nanny berry photo by John Bates

 “Clean” Woods

            I’ve recently noticed a number of forest understories that have been “cleaned up” by their owners – in other words, denuded of all understory plants. Some people refer to this as “German forestry.” The likely motivation of such extensive ground clearing is to improve airflow and thus reduce mosquito habitat. I get that – mosquitoes are particularly tough to deal with in June – and this can help a bit.

There are, however, major tradeoffs in managing a woodland to look like a park. Foremost is the loss of habitat for a large array of wildlife species. Numerous birds nest on the ground in forests including species like ruffed grouse, wild turkeys, and many, many songbirds. One of my favorite songbirds is the very vocal ovenbird, a warbler species that builds its nest on a vertical plane rather than horizontal so that the adults enter it like an oven. The ovenbird’s insistent, loud song – “teacher, teacher, teacher, TEACHER” – resonates throughout most of our forested lands in the Northwoods.

Another favorite ground-nester is the hermit thrush, whose song has been likened to listening to the opening of a grand overture.

Northwoods bird species that nest on the ground in forested areas and in more open habitats include spruce grouse, ruffed grouse, sharp-tailed grouse, wild turkey, American woodcock, whip-poor-will, yellow-bellied flycatcher, winter and sedge wren, veery, hermit thrush, dark-eyed junco, bobolink, as well as the following warblers: blue-winged, golden-winged, Tennessee, Nashville, palm, black-and-white, ovenbird, northern waterthrush, Connecticut, mourning, Wilson’s, and Canada. Numerous sparrows nest on the ground too, including savannah, Le Conte’s, song, Lincoln’s, and white-throated.

woodcock nest photo by Mary Burns

Many mammals, from small prey species to larger predators, den in or on the ground, with the primary requirement of having suitable cover to conceal their locations.

The list goes on, from various butterflies that utilize the understory plants to a host of other invertebrates who use plants and woody debris for cover and food.

So, for property owners, there are always choices to be made as to how one manages the land. Management always comes down to what one values and what role we wish to play in the natural world. I’m an advocate for natural random order in forest understories, but no management strategy will support all species and all desires. Leopold wrote: “I have read many definitions of what is a conservationist, and written not a few myself, but I suspect that the best one is written not with a pen but with an axe. It is a matter of what a man thinks about while chopping, or while deciding what to chop. A conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke he is writing his signature on the face of his land.”

Celestial Events – Summer Solstice!

            Summer solstice occurs on 6/20, giving us our longest day of the year – 15 hours and 45 minutes. The sun rises at 5:08 a.m. and sets at 8:53 p.m. The sunrise and sunset are also at their northernmost points in our sky and now begin to swing back south.

            The full moon – the “strawberry” moon – also occurs on 6/20, and is the year’s southernmost moonrise.

            For planet watching, look after dark on 6/11 for Jupiter 1.5 degrees north of the waxing crescent moon.